


When a Thrill is Complete

by missbeizy



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:47:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbeizy/pseuds/missbeizy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is such contrived bullshit," Sean announces, swiping potato chip grease from his fingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When a Thrill is Complete

"This is such contrived bullshit," Sean announces, swiping potato chip grease from his fingers.

Elijah takes the bowl from his lap. "You just don't like the director." 

"It's nothing personal." 

"Of course it's not." 

"You're humoring me." 

"Of course I am." 

Sean throws crumbs at Elijah. Elijah can make him feel as if he's ten years old one second, and eighty the next. "It's not as if the content's altogether bad. It's that the message is just handed to you. If the symbolism were any heavier it'd put holes in the theatre floor, is all I'm saying. An anvil draped in neon bar lighting. And possibly sparkly confetti." 

There is a beat of silence, and then Elijah laughs. "Man, I am way too tired to argue with you. But I will say, for the record, that you are an ass." He slides off the couch and heads for the kitchen, pale white and shadow in the corner of Sean's eye. 

*

When Sean runs out into the water of the lake and feels liquid pain shoot up his leg, his mind becomes instantly lucid with panic. In the span of three seconds, he asks himself a dozen of questions. He wonders if he'll be able to continue working this shoot, if he'll be able to work any shoot in the future, for that matter, if they'll have to amputate or, oh, God, where are the major arteries in the foot? Are there any major arteries in the foot? What if yet undiscovered New Zealand lake microbes have given him an incurable blood infection? 

And then there's the fact that it hurts like a motherfucker. 

Once the prosthetic foot's off and they reassure him that no major damage has been done, though, he looks up through a haze of pain and sees the entire cast and crew around him. Something different wells up inside of him. He likes the attention because he knows now that he isn't going to die. Everyone is focusing on him, and it's not that bad; in fact, it's kind of cool. Elijah stands out as always, impish about every on-set mishap yet still managing to straddle the line between sympathy and amusement in his own way. _Elijah can play with my blood clot all he likes._

Christine and Ali sit with him for the few hours he's in the hospital, and fuss over him for the remainder of the evening. Peter calls to check in and Sean lets him know that he will be at work tomorrow. He feels fine, but the primary reason he wants to go back so soon is that he feels he has something to prove. Billy gets dental work with no anesthetic; Viggo superglues his teeth back on between sword swings, breaks his toes and doesn't yell for cut and, when smashed in the head with a surfboard, simply requests that they shoot his other side. Sean can't be the one to take a day off because a shard of glass nearly sliced his foot in half. 

He'd never hear the end of it. He'd never _let_ himself hear the end of it. 

*

At times, the strength of his ability to feel is overwhelming. It cripples him when he's at his weakest. He's giddy with exhaustion near constantly on this set, weighed down by his body and, at times, he likes to think that he has it the worst of all of them. It's not that he truly believes this, but rather that the residue his selfishness leaves behind is enough to validate his negativity on some subconscious level. It supports, with little condition, the birth of morbid pity fantasies.

What helps: this is easily put down when his co-workers (family, brothers) or his wife call him on his shit. When that occurs the game is different, the circumstances change, and he is not just a singular being floating on the edge of a massive experience that threatens to crush him but a short note in a grand symphony that is beyond his orchestration. 

And then there is love; he loves these people so much that it can sometimes drive away the depressive spots inside of him. It's blinding, and something that he could possibly resent--if he could manage to dislike it, which he can't. Won't. 

He sits on a rock, dirty and tired and worn, and looks up to see Elijah through a crowd of extras and crew and equipment, young and soft all over. Not physically soft, really, though Sean knows that he is, but psychologically soft, in a way that hints at lightness. Youthful angst, after all, even at its worst, is not real darkness. Darkness is Sean's selfishness, black and thick with the promise of ego, so unlike Elijah's occasional self-consciousness and deprecation that there really is no comparison. 

How can anyone even stand to work with him, how can-- 

"You've got that look," Elijah interrupts, worming his way onto the corner of Sean's rock. "This one is _much_ more comfortable than the last one I sat on." 

Instead of laughing at the overused joke, as he always does, Sean simply makes enough room for Elijah to sit. 

"You should've heard Peter, man, he was telling me--you won't believe it--that in the next scene, we're gonna go for greenish rock as opposed to the current, trendy gray. The guy is so radical, I just can't keep up." Sean blinks. Elijah pauses, and then says, "And then, we fuck like rabbits on the rock." Sean blinks again. "Dude." 

"Tired." 

"And two rewrites away from flinging yourself off yonder cliff?" 

"Maybe." _Just stay, just sit with me_ , Sean thinks, _and maybe this feeling will go away._

"Can we take five?" Elijah shouts to Peter, who glances up from a huddled conversation and gives them a wave. They won't be ready to go for another fifteen at the least, judging by the nature of the huddle. Elijah drags Sean around a corner, down an incline, and past the sheer edge of rock that he had caught his wig on earlier this morning. He takes them far enough away so that the noise of the crew is nothing more than a hum. 

"In through the nose, out through the mouth, and we're not going back until you can put that crap in your head to something Gamgee-like," Elijah commands, and fidgets, turning around and wiggling his hands inside of his cloak. It's fucking freezing. Sean knows that he's twitching for a cigarette. 

"Haven't you ever wished that you didn't have to--that I wouldn't've--that they'd cast someone more--" 

Sean has never really come out and said it before, but there it is. Today, he hates himself, and so it makes sense that Elijah, that Peter, that everyone, hates him. 

"More what?" Elijah replies. "Chrissake. You did not just say that to me, fucker." 

All he can do is wince. Everything is wrong, from the way he feels to the way he expresses those feelings, and he only understands each failure after the fact. Why can't he have the foresight to control his mouth in the same way he has had the foresight to plan for his family? And why hadn't he had the foresight to see the way Elijah would evolve around him and into him, and why hadn't he had the foresight to see them the way they are right now, cold and cranky and wanting each other for reasons neither can identify? 

So here is _another_ look, the one he gets when he realizes he's being utterly frustrating, and Elijah's eyes soften as he steps forward and takes Sean against his chest. They hug. Sean closes his eyes. "I won't apologize." 

"That's more like it," Elijah says into his neck. The warmth is wonderful. Elijah doesn't have to be good at comfort to comfort Sean. 

*

His decision is indecision, which is to say that there really is no way to decide without disrupting the flow of life. He has a Moment, as he often does, watching Elijah and Christine play with Ali one lazy Sunday afternoon. He watches them grinning and crawling on the carpet--Ali giggles, high-pitched and indescribably beautiful, chased by an Elijah-monster--and Sean realizes that, for some time now, he has categorized Elijah and Christine in the same role, only at opposite ends of whatever spectrum it is that they belong on. Christine, domestic, knowing him to the bone, Elijah, working relationship, loving him above and underneath his skin; the both of them taken together offer completion. He loves them both. Needs them both. Wants them both.

What does Elijah want from him? Love. Acceptance. _I'm not here to change your life_ , he says, panting exhaustedly against Sean's damp shoulders. _I don't want to own you, and I don't want you to own me. I just want this, whenever it fits._

And Christine? Nothing has changed. He loves her so hard that it hurts. He can't picture being away from her. What does she want from him? To keep on being what he is. For him to love her, and to love their children. _I love you as you are, and as long as you can deal with regular kicks in the ass, we're great, babe._

This isn't supposed to happen. It isn't supposed to split so cleanly down the middle. It's supposed to end in tears and heartache and legal proceedings, because there can be no logical end besides punishment. He doesn't deserve them and yet he has them. 

Christine's eyes follow his and find them on herself and on Elijah and then again on herself, and a part of her that will never, ever speak simply knows. Not the details and not the nature of it, maybe, but she knows that there are bonds that Sean is forming in New Zealand that are as necessary to his life as she is, and, loving him as she does, knowing him as she does, she is not threatened. Sean knows this. Has to believe in it. 

It stays this way. 

*

After watching dailies in the lobby of the Powderhorn, the only thing on anyone's mind is sleep. Drowsy crew and cast alike collapse until the bursting-at-the-seams bed and breakfast is as silent as the grave. Sean counts the minutes, just reaching eleven when he hears Elijah's quiet knock. He gets up, opens the door, and Elijah slides forward into the space between his forearms, and kisses him. They're too tired to be noisy and that's a good thing. It's always quiet at these on-location stays, anyway; the stress of lodging under one roof and the shared exhaustion all add up to dead sleep for mostly everyone.

But stress must be abated somehow, and this is how they handle it. They rub and embrace and lie carefully on the small bed. Elijah bites at Sean's ear and neck, pushing his own pants down. Sean does the same. It's all hot air and soft bed creaks and Elijah breathes, "Me," and Sean nods and kisses the back of his neck as he turns over and presents his back. Sean coats his fingers and slides the latex over himself and begins carefully, working his fingers until Elijah turns, gasping silently, and nuzzles his temple, carefully drawing Sean's arm around his waist ( _enough_ ). And then they're together, and Elijah is unbearably tight, sliding onto his belly and encouraging Sean to follow. 

Sean kisses the spot between Elijah's shoulder blades, then licks at the knob of his spine, and then inhales the clean smell of his hair. He settles his elbows on either side of Elijah's shoulders, and lifts his body. The squeaking of the bed grows frantic beneath them. Elijah's face is buried in the pillow, and Sean can tell from the rapid expansion and contraction of his sides that he's panting, maybe whimpering. 

"Roll over," Sean exhales, desperately wanting to see his face, and Elijah manages it with ease. It's difficult, though, to stay hunched over kissing him while sliding into him at the same time, so Sean samples a long, sweet kiss or two and then rises up, letting Elijah's legs drape around his waist. He pushes until his thighs are flat against Elijah's; he can see the strain of taking all of him twist Elijah's face into an expression of intense pleasure. When he's like this, sweaty and red and full, Sean can almost forget what they're doing, is almost struck still by the beauty of it. Elijah tugs at his hip and he comes out of the stare, pulling back and sinking forward again. 

The shattering relief comes finally, wracking his body. He pushes his lips together; a low whimper cracks in his throat anyway and he surges forward, bunching Elijah's hips, making the headboard of the bed tap the wall just once. Heat is painted in broad stripes of red along his neck, shoulders, and cheeks. He takes Elijah in hand and brings him off panting with a series of rapid, rough jerks. When he comes, Elijah's fingers dig into Sean's sides and his heels press Sean's back. 

"Stay a minute," Elijah whispers when Sean shifts back, and Sean can feel the muscle around his flagging erection, and can see the satisfaction in Elijah's face. Finally, he slides down and rests his head on Elijah's stomach. His feet hang off the bed so far that it's almost comical. One of Elijah's hands comes to rest in the sweat-curled tangle of his hair. 

"Bed's fucking tiny," Sean sighs, wrapping one arm around Elijah's hip. 

"Mm," Elijah replies, closing his eyes. 

They doze for a while, and then Sean comes awake. He watches Elijah's face, soft and vulnerable in sleep, and makes a silent promise to himself to never forget it. He nudges Elijah. "Shouldn't you get back?" 

"Fuck it," Elijah mutters, and begins tugging the comforter up around them. 

"But tomorrow--" 

"Who cares?" 

Sean sprawls out next to Elijah, and realizes that it probably doesn't matter at all.


End file.
